International Organization for Standardization

Information Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Basic Reference Model: the Basic Model - Second Edition; Corrected and reprlnted : 6/15/1996
 N ISO/IEC 7498-1

Annotation

The purpose of this Reference Model of Open Systems Interconnection is to provide a common basis for the coordination of standards development for the purpose of systems interconnection. while allowing existing standards to be placed into perspective within the overall Reference Model.

The term Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) qualifies standards for the exchange of information among systems that are “open” to one another for this purpose by virtue of their mutual use of the applicable standards.

The fact that a system is open does not imply any particular systems implementation, technology or means of interconnection, but refers to the mutual recognition and support of the applicable standards.

It is also the purpose of this Reference Model to identify areas for developing or improving standards, and to provide a common reference for maintaining consistency of all related standards. It is not the intent of this Reference Model either to serve as an implementation specification, or to be a basis for appraising the conformance of actual implementations, or to provide a sufficient level of detail to define precisely the services and protocols of the interconnection architecture. Rather, this Reference Model provides a conceptual and functional framework which allows international teams of experts to work productively and independently on the development of standards for each layer of the Reference Model for OSI.

The Reference Model has sufficient flexibility to accommodate advances in technology and expansion in user demands. This flexibility is also intended to allow the phased transition from existing implementations to OSI standards.